


Before The Last Light Flickers

by Persephonic



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-02-27
Updated: 2012-03-13
Packaged: 2017-10-31 19:31:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/347601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Persephonic/pseuds/Persephonic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the story of how Anna managed to retain her physical form after getting her Grace. This is the story of how Mary Winchester saved the world. This is the story of the Winchester woman who lived. AU(ish).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: Celestial Intent

**Author's Note:**

> This story began as a way to try to write more about the women of Supernatural and turned into something that took on a life of it's own, especially since I've always been amused that in canon Dean has only had one close call with fatherhood. This is an unabashed kid fic, and while some may call it a Mary Sue fic, I've always thought that the Winchester brothers could use a female companion and not one that they're screwing, saving, or watching burn on the ceiling. 
> 
> I've tried to follow canon events as closely as possible so that rather than rearranging the Supernatural-verse, this character could be woven into it and perhaps offer new perspectives and views of characters and plots that the show itself didn't get into. After all, they only have forty minutes and, well, there's a lotta stuff that's gotta die between the teaser and the end credits. That's why we have fanfic.

To regain Grace is to ache more intensely than when she ripped it from herself and plummeted into the insufficiency of the Earth, of a mortal womb, of a mind that can only contain so much of the echo of that grace. Such a fracture, frail matrix of chemicals and sparks had to let loose of memory after memory, shedding knowledge like water bailed overboard on a sinking ship. 

The ascension back home is blinding, binding, suffusing her with sensations she had long forgotten to feel because no Earthly thing is capable of their touch. Light beyond light, and power beyond perfection's whispered limitations greets her in the moment that she expands in an eternal explosion, a big bang of it's own that is a new universe and an old universe becoming again. It is even more miraculous a thing than the dead rising, though neither Dean nor Sam nor even Castiel could begin to reckon with such a concept. 

She expects in the moment of bright oblivion, in the infinity between Earth and the shore of God's endless ocean that she will find herself returned to the place she fell from, or at the mercy of an archangel or their lieutenants at least. She does not wake among the higher planes or the places of unbound glory. 

Instead, she wakes the realm of a single mortal heaven, one of the many bubbles blown by the breath of God's mercy towards His lesser children. This heaven is a startling simplicity. Anna finds herself in a field, wrapped in the trappings of a body she thought never to recover. Wind blows the tawny knee-high grasses like an invisible hand petting the fur of a large animal. In the distance is an old style farm house with a front porch swing, a sunny cloudless sky above. In the yard, a big brown and white dog barks and a young boy laughs a shrieking laugh as he tries to keep a frisbee away from the dog's eager reach. 

"Come on, Len!" the boy implores gleefully. "Deeeeeeaaaan, he won't let me throw it! Deeeeaaaaan!"

Dean? 

A taller, older boy comes away from the car that rests in the driveway, hood propped up and a man's legs sticking out from underneath. Anna approaches very cautiously, slow and hoping that they will not see her approach. The grass scarcely rustles because her caution in each motion is so great. 

Young Dean suddenly charges at his brother with open arms and wraps them around Sam's waist and in an instant they both go to the ground and suddenly, a three way wrestling match has begun, the third party being the large, gentle dog that playfully leaps around the fray and occasionally offers slobbery licks to the participants. Dean and Sam roll over each other in the yard, each competing for the frisbee as they playfully kick and squirm and shout with joy, calling out childishly rude names. 

"Butthead!" Dean cries out and is called a jerkface in return. 

Anna can't help but smile and wonder who's heaven she has entered into. John Winchester's perhaps, but that makes no sense. Why should Dean and Sam's father's heaven be where she finds herself? 

"I guess one of the perks of heaven is that you don't have to worry that they're going to bust their heads open horseplaying," says a voice from behind her. She whips around and sees a blonde woman with a gentle, maternally serene face and a plain flower patterned dress standing behind her. 

"Who -"

"I'm Mary Winchester," the woman says and offers a hand for a handshake. In her shock, Anna takes it but can't think of a thing to say. "Sorry about the sudden trip. I had you brought here quickly in case the wrong people found out."

"You had me brought here?"

Mary smiles, warm as the sun and pure as the blue of the sky. "You learn a few tricks when you've been in heaven a while. I was born into a family of Hunters. I'm an old hat when it comes to figuring these things out."

Anna crosses her arms and turns back to the scene of Dean and Sam as children. Dean has his brother in a tenuous head lock and it takes the arrival of an older woman on the front porch and the call of, "Who wants lemonade?" to break up their mock battle.

"You know, I always wanted a daughter," Mary remarks. "John and I planned to have more children after Sam. He only wanted three, but after Sam I knew I wanted to try to have a baby girl. Don't get me wrong, I love my boys more than you can know. I guess this is close enough."

"Of course," Anna replies. "I don't understand. Why are you telling me this?"

"You already know, you just haven't let yourself figure it out. Why do you think that form's hanging on. It should've been obliterated on the trip up, am I correct?"

"Yes, but -"

Then Anna stops and she stares at the house and she stares at Dean, grass stains on the knees of his jeans, sitting in the porch swing with his brother with a glass of lemonade in one hand and a cookie in the other. The wind blows harder and harder and the lone cloud in the sky overshadows the divine sun for just one moment. 

And in the moment she understands completely.

"Oh god," she gasps ever so quietly. Mary's hand rests on her shoulder as reassurance, comfort, or perhaps just to help her stay upright. Though it doesn't last very long because her knees melt and she topples to all fours, hidden in the grass and still the other woman hovers over her. "It doesn't make sense. This shouldn't - there wasn't time enough. It was only -"

Mary laughs. "Trust me, there was more than enough time. Only takes a split second."

"But I regained my grace, my physical body exploded. There shouldn't be anything left, even if. Even if…"

A tight knot at the center of Anna gets just that much tighter and she covers the eyes of her form, but it's all for nothing. Her grace restored, the illusion of physical sight and the absence of it serve no purpose. She still senses and feels all the many strands of heaven's web vibrating around her, she still knows the weight of the tiny thing anchored to her, clinging like a young vine, a seedling just barely poking the tiniest fragile spring green tendril above ground. 

"This can't, I can't," she stutters. She has Grace but not grace in this moment. That alone is in Mary's keeping as she crouches down. 

"If it makes you feel any better, I felt the same way with Dean. Scared the absolute hell out of me. I didn't tell John for a week I was so terrified and we were trying for a baby."

"But, if the others find out, if they knew. With everything coming…this child. God," she whispers. The very thought, the idea, the materialization of the concept, a reality exploding into itself, into existence. This child. She cannot hold the idea and cannot let it go: this very real soul, this brand new thing that that is slight as a whisper, weightless as light and still real, still as anchored to existing as a stone now in her reckoning. "I don't know what to do."

"Well, that's why God invented grandmothers, sweetie," Mary replies and smooths down Anna's hair. 

"The child will be defenseless when she's born, here and on Earth. There won't be any place that's safe."

"Yes, *when* it's born."

Anna looks up. "Are you saying I should…?"

"This has to be your decision. You're the one who's going to be doing the heavy lifting here. All I meant was there might not be a safe place, but there might be a safer time."

The idea, like the child, comes together from nothing at all in her mind. All it needed was some tiny spark, a little help, some infinitesimal material to jump start everything. When. When. 

Nine months from the moment she regained her Grace might not be safe, but for the moment she knows that she has the backing of Heaven - the essence of Heaven, God Himself perhaps, if only for the sake of what is innocent. The angels and archangels may control much, but there are still some things that act on their own. 

If the child were much older, if she were grown and capable of defending herself, perhaps even given time to learn what she is and develop into whatever she will be -- perhaps then Anna could be assured that her daughter would not flicker out like a blown candle, barely bright and lively for a moment before snuffed into nothingness once more.

"I'm scared. Nothing'll be the same after this."

"It never is. Doesn't mean it has to be bad. If I can give you one piece of advice, Anna?"

"What's that?"

"You can't keep her from what's coming, no matter what you do. I tried with my boys and look where they are. John was right to prepare them, get them ready. Make her ready, give her every fighting chance you can."

"I can't do that. The others will watch me. The closer I am to her, the more likely it is that they'll find her. What they'd do…"

"Then make sure she's with someone who can give her that. Make sure she's got a way to the truth."

Anna nods and steadies herself with a breath that is not a breath, but a vibration through herself to calm all the jangling of fear and confusion within. 

"Thank you, Mary."

"You're welcome. Oh, and Anna?"

"Yes?"

"Make sure Dean knows what he's got. If you can't help her, may be can. A girl needs her father, too."

Anna isn't quite sure she can face Dean or speak the words outside of this picturesque heaven. She is not sure she can keep such a promise, so she does not make it. Mary gives her another pat on the shoulder and walks on, entering her front lawn and embracing her youngest son when he leaps into her arms, scrawny and shaggy haired and boundlessly full of joy and love.


	2. A Far Longer Road

"Look, Dean, you know I'm all for killin' evil sons of bitches wherever they may be, but you're runnin' yourselves ragged out there. Even a Hunter's gotta rest now and again," Bobby said, gruffly and keeping his words slower, more careful than usual. Dean's lips ticked up in an part smile. He checked his watch, did the mental math with the time zones. Yep. Definitely a bottle of Hunter's Helper involved in this conversation and his caution. That Dean could even tell meant Bobby was a few shots in by now. More than a few, probably. The man could hold liquor like an oak barrel. 

"Well, you know what they say about idle hands and all," he replied and considered making some of the obvious jokes about hands, idleness, and wickedness but decided the fruit was just too low hanging. People thought Dean always went for the easiest entendre available, said the first thing that popped into his head to smart off with. People were wrong. Dean Winchester was an old hat at this and he had standards. He'd known since about fifth grade that if you just went for whatever was laying around, you looked like a total douche. And if Dean Winchester could say one thing about himself, it was that he was not a douche. 

Evil, torturing son of a bitch. Twisted and broken. A jerk. A loser. A joker, smoker, midnight toker and all that. But not a douche. 

"Congrats on your restraint," Bobby sniped. Dean practically heard the eye roll. 

"Come on, you gotta have something for me. All I've got right now is this thing in Nebraska and I'd like to drive somewhere with a landscape and not just a flat line."

Silence, pages in the background, some rattling and a harsh breath from Bobby. Again, Dean's mind filled in the scent the whiskey over the line and decided he didn't want to be left out. While Bobby grumbled and cursed and bitched himself near into a coma in the background, Dean pulled his flask and didn't quite remember if he'd filled it up with Jack, Johnnie or Jim. He took a couple of draws and with a bit of delight, discovered it was indeed Jack Daniels. Ah, the simple pleasures. 

He contemplated that it would be kind of cool if they ever got a job in Lynchburg where they made the stuff. He could think of a few reasons for the distillery to be haunted. Alcoholic ghosts, maybe. 

Bobby came back with a big sigh and informed him curtly, "You wanna keep busy, you could go out eat. Try your hand at Huntersville."

"Huntersville? What's that a theme park for Hunters? They got rides?"

"No, idjit. You never hurt of Huntersville? I thought everyone knew about that."

"About what?"

"Last seven years, no Hunter's been able to carry out a job successfully in Huntersville. One way or another, something just goes wrong."

"Anyone die bloody?"

"That's the weird thing. Nobody died at all. They just end up somewhere else, whether they want to be or not."

"So it's like a Cold Oak situation. The spooks are taking over until the town's emptied out?"

"Actually, the opposite. Plenty of jobs crop up, but somehow they get dealt with. Just not by hunters."

Dean put away the flask. He wanted to be plenty sober to do the research and hit the road ASAP with Sam. "Anything there lately?"

"Oh yeah. Demonic omens last month, a mutilated corpse that can't be explained away. Now there's been some wacky weather. Couple of weeks ago Ray Stevens went to check it out and found himself in the back of his own pickup half way to outer Mongolia. No idea how he got there."

"Really, Mongolia?"

"Yeah. It was a helluva time gettin' him back from from Ghenghis Khan's forces, but we managed," Bobby replied. Dean broke a bit of a smirk and checked over his shoulder. Sam slept on, cozy even though he looked like he had to be terribly cramped in the back seat since, if he'd stretched out, his feet out have been out the window. "Just be careful. Just 'cause nobody's died yet don't mean that can't change. Whatever this is, it's set some pretty damn good hunters back on their heels."

"Hey, when are we ever not careful?"

Bobby sighed with a long suffering kind of weariness didn't answer further. He hung up and Dean reached for his flashlight and the map to study the route. He looked into the backseat and then to his backpack with his kit in the floor of the backseat. His mind immediately ran to the shaving cream and the fact that Sam's left hand laid open beside him as he snored.

He debated it and decided that so soon after a job it was probably on the nose. And he didn't want shaving cream all over his baby's interior. Sam would probably get it everywhere.

As Dean studied the route and checked his father's journal for any references to Huntersville, Sam snorted awake with a groan and sat up, sleepy and mole eyed. 

"Dean? What are you doing?" he asked, breathy with grogginess. 

"What's it look like I'm doing?"

"Like you're looking for a job."

"Not looking, found. Didn't you hear me talking to Bobby?'

"No, sorry. I was sleeping after the job we just finished two hours ago. How are you looking for another one now?'

With a shrug, Dean illuminated the long, nearly straight eastward path to get them over the Mississippi. "Adrenaline's still pumping, I guess. I got a good one this time, Sammy. Ever hear of Huntersville?"

"Huntersville? Really. Isn't the place cursed for, like, every hunter ever?"

"You've heard of Huntersville?"

"Yeah, who hasn't."

Dean snorted and frowned at his little brother. "And you never felt the need to mention it to me?"

"What for? What does it matter, anyway? I'm all for working. I really am. But you've got us chasing cases nonstop for like a month now. We need sleep."

"Yeah, we can sleep when we're dead."

"You're exhausted, Dean."

"I'm good," he replied and flipped a page in dad's journal but found it wasn't Huntersville, but Huntingdon, Tennessee. Totally different place. A lot more angry civil war ghosts and apparently BBQ so good that the dripped stain of sauce still smelled smoky and delicious like a decade later. 

"No, you're not," Sam insisted. He leaned forward and rubbed his face. "You're running on fumes, and you can't run forever."

"And what am I running from?"

Dean's hand slid towards the flask in his inside pocket with the treacherous thought that Sam could drive and he could sleep and this entire conversation could be melted away in the sweet alcoholic burn. 

"From what you told me. Or are we pretending that never happened?"

Dean made a decided point of not looking at Sam as he handed him the keys from his pocket and grunted, "You drive."

"Dean -"

"Well, I'm so tired from running and all. Wouldn't wanna have a wreck now would we?" he asked, grinning as Sam rolled his eyes, pitched his head back and slid towards the door to get into the front seat. 

 

#

 

Huntersville opened up before them coming down the mountain on a long, scary curve. Dean took a single terrifying glance over the dead drop down the edge which seemed to go straight down to the valley beneath them, pock marked with scenic, old timey looking church steeples and houses amongst the snowy foliage below. 

"You okay? I can drive if you want."

"Oh, now you wanna drive. You nearly bitched yourself hoarse all the way from Oklahoma about it and now you wanna drive," he said and tightened his hand on the wheel as a big rig sped beside them, trapping the Impala between it and the nose dive below. 

"It wasn't like you wanted to talk about anything else," he sniped in return. 

"One, we're guys. We don't have to talk. Ever. That's the point. Two, what's there to talk about? It is what it is, Sammy. This ain't Dr. Phil. We're not gonna have a nice little chat and hug and cry. The less I think about it, the better. And you trying to bring it up all the time isn't gonna do any good."

"Sorry. I'm just trying to help."

"Well, you're not. So can we can knock it the hell off and just work?"

"Fine."

"Fine."

They said nothing further all the way down the winding highway that wove them through the mountains and landed them on Huntersville's outskirts and Dean was so damn grateful for that he could have spit. If he hadn't been doing seventy, he might have rolled down the windows and tried. 

Huntersville proper didn't distinguish itself from the thousand other small towns subsisting on dying manufacturing jobs and not much else. A mix of low grade chain restaurants and aged local joints, the only feature to commend the entire town had to be either the scenic route into town or the ambitious abundance of Wal-Marts and adult bookstores. 

Road signs indicated motels going either way off the exit, the kind that looked just their speed. The kind where owners still used the manual credit card machines that swiped over a piece of carbon paper and they didn't ask too many questions about the fact that you signed a name shared by the drummer for a classic rock band. 

"Wanna flip for left or right?" Dean asked as they waited at the light. Sam shrugged in that grouchy, moody kind of way he did when he was really holding on to how you'd hurt his feelings. Instinct had him wanting to fix it all and apologize and get Sammy back to rights or at least get him out of that broody slouch in the front seat. 

Even now, Dean had no doubt he could have cajoled his brother out of it. Maybe not into a better mood, but a more neutral one. 

"Fine, we're goin' left. But if we end up at the motel with the fingernails in the bed and no magic fingers, it's on you, man."

Sam broke a fraction of a smile at the mention of the mishap at the Shellrock Motel in Duluth. Dean knew that he could probably use that 'til Doomsday to get a rise out of his brother. Almost made it worth it - realizing that he'd slept on some old guy's yellowish collection of nail clippings because the maid hadn't bothered to change the sheets.

Dean went left and Sam's shoulders straightened and relaxed just a bit. Okay, then. They could still do this job.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick note to say that yes, I did use some dialogue straight from the show in the fic. As I said, I wanted to stick close to canonical events with this story.


	3. Interlude: A Different Heaven

Again, the field. Again, the ache of grace regained. Anna opens her eyes and expects to rise and see the house the Winchesters never had, see the boys the Winchesters never were, the mother they never had, the heaven they may still be denied. 

She rises and the grass is not tawny, it's verdant and short, a crisp kind of crew cut that that extend out to the tree line. Where once the sky dominated this heaven, now the jagged teeth of breath-taking snow capped mountains do. Hills roll in the distance and the house she stands distant from is not the charming, comfortably worn farm house. 

Now Anna finds a neater, handsome dark brick affair, a Colonial-style with color speckled shrubs circling it.

"Well, have you figured it out?"

The voice is Mary Winchester's and it is not. Anna turns and the woman standing next to her does not wear the plain dress, her hair is not loose and slightly curly. This woman wears a black jacket over a blood stained white nightgown and black combat boots. This woman's hair is pulled back into a tight but messy blonde bun. 

"Mary?"

Mary doesn't smile. "You think you're the only angel who can manipulate time?"

Anna crosses her arms tightly and her mind races to see if that precious tendril, that tiny thing still abides and resides within her. It does. That tiny oscillation of new creation vibrates still. So soft even she can barely discern it, but it remains. 

"Who are you? You can't be Mary Winchester."

This makes her smile, finally. "When you get back to earth, when you see my boys again, ask them who saved them when they went back to Lawrence."

"If you -" Anna stops and puts fingers softly to her lips to consider the implications of this place, this alternate heaven. "I don't understand."

"You don't remember yet."

"Remember what?"

Mary sidesteps until they're close and takes Anna's thin, long fingered hand. "It's not just about Dean."

Anna looks to the beautiful, elegant house and her mind jackrabbits in all the wrong ways. She thinks of course Mary's heaven would be mountains and green hills and a fine house. A life time spent in flat, brown Kansas and weathered old houses, of course. She ought to have known. Freedom could never come so easily, nor punishment escaped so readily. 

Dean and Sam, still young but not so young as before, come running around the house. Sam has matched his older brother for height and lankiness. This time, their play is not so exuberant. This time she can see young wolves sparring, sharpening themselves against each other. Sam ducks under a punch thrown and then sweep's Dean's feet. Then he turns and Anna swears he looks right at her when he smiles with satisfaction in his eyes. 

Something sweeps across her. A sense memory, a vibration, a whisper of knowledge that won't surface and won't recede. "Mary?"

Mary's hand squeezes hers. "Not everything the other me said was a complete lie."

"What do you mean?"

"You can't save her. All you can do is prepare her for what's coming, for what she'll become."

"Become?"

Mary once more smiles. "What did you think this child would be? Did you really think she'd just be human. Sorry, sweetie. That's a Winchester you're carrying. Normal isn't in our DNA. Now go before they catch you here and now."

Grace shreds through her once again. The grass beneath her burns in white flames. Dean and Sam stand and raise their arms to shield their eyes from the magnificent, unbearable luminescence. The house disintegrates in the blast, bricks flying. The sky thunders, boils, the mountains crumble. 

And still that small thing clings and defies the very violence of heaven's glory to survive. And in that moment of delectable, agonizing perfection Anna gasps and remembers. She remembers the whiteness of snow and air that turned to ghostly mist around her face as her vessel breathed but felt no cold. She remembers that even the ice in the air could not disguise the reek of sulfur, nor the sulfur dull the ache of compassion and understanding that went deep as her core, deep as the tiny soul curled at the center of her.


End file.
